What is Spirit Possession ? Defi ning , Comparing , and Explaining Two Possession Forms

Reviewing anthropological analyses of possession forms cross-culturally and drawing from recent advances in cognitive psychology, this paper attempts to explain recurrent features of spirit possession. Spirit possession concepts fall into broadly two varieties: one that entails the transformation or replacement of identity (executive possession) and one that envisages possessing spirits as (the cause of) illness and misfortune (pathogenic possession). The cross-culturally recurrent features of these divergent conceptual structures may be explained, at least in part, with reference to distinct processes of human psychology, one set of which deals with the representation of person-identity and another that deals with notions about contamination. keywords Comparative anthropology, person-identity, spirit illness In 1976, Erika Bourguignon, one of the foremost anthropological scholars of spirit possession, published a book entitled Possession in which she presented a cross-cultural analysis of possession beliefs and behaviours. Bourguignon parsed the broad range of possession phenomena into two types. Both types entail the belief that a ‘person is changed in some way through the presence in him or on him of a spirit entity or power, other than his own personality, soul, self or the like’ (1976 : 8). The two types were labelled ‘possession trance’ and ‘possession’. Possession trance is expressed in altered states of consciousness; in possession, such trance states are absent. This particular method of carving up the domain proved useful for assessing the frequency and distribution of possession, possession trance, and trance (an ‘altered state of consciousness’ entailing no associated possession belief ) in cross-cultural survey of a world-wide sample of 488 societies (Bourguignon 1968).